Godzillapalooza #8: Son of Godzilla (1967)

Son of Godzilla (1967)

Monster Profiles:

MINILLA (A.K.A. MINYA)

-HEIGHT: 43-59 feet

-MASS: 1,980-3,300 tons

-SPECIAL POWERS: Blows radioactive smoke rings, but can breath Godzilla's trademark atomic ray when under extreme duress. Under rare circumstances, Minya can also shrink down to human size (i.e. "Godzilla's Revenge" and "Godzilla: Final Wars").

-BACKGROUND: The identity of Minya's birth parents is debatable, but it's generally accepted that he is Godzilla's adopted son, primarily because he doesn't look very much like Godzilla at all. Godzilla discovers Minya shortly after he hatches on Sollgel Island and saves him from a group of Kamacuras. The two are inseparable from then on, at least for the next two movies following this one. 

-BATTLE RECORD: 4-2-1

KAMACURAS

-HEIGHT: 164 feet

-MASS: 3,080 tons

-SPECIAL POWERS: Kamacuras has nothing in the way of beams or rays. Rather it has all the weapons of a regular preying mantis such as flight, spiked claws, and mandibles.

-BACKGROUND: Kamacuras, a.k.a "Gimantis", where an unusually large species of preying mantis living on Sollgel Island. The original species was already a staggering 2 meters tall, but when doused by a radioactive rainstorm accidentally created by the U.N. weather control experiment, Kamacuras ballooned to 50 meters in height (164 feet). Many were killed by Godzilla and Kumonga, but few remained contained on Monster Island and one was employed by the Xilian aliens bent on world domination in "Godzilla: Final Wars".

-BATTLE RECORD: 0-4-1

KUMONGA

Kumonga in "Godzilla: Final Wars"

-HEIGHT: 148 feet
-MASS: 8,800 tons
-SPECIAL POWERS: Kumonga's powers are essentially the same as that of any spider. She has a poison stinger and can shoot a powerful web from her mouth, much like larval Mothra.
-BACKGROUND: Kumonga is an enormous, subterranean spider discovered on Sollgel Island and later confined on Monster Island. There's is not much else to say about Kumonga's origins other than it is likely that the radioactive rainstorm was to blame for it's large size.
-BATTLE RECORD: 3-2

Synopsis:
A United Nations research team is conducting weather-control experiments on the remote Sollgel Island, when reporter, Goro Masaki, drops from the sky because he senses a good story. The team accepts his prescence out of necessity and before long they have bigger fish to fry. The team's first attempt at freezing the Island goes terribly wrong and creates a radioactive rainstorm which mutates many of the already abnormally sized native creatures. With Kamacuras and Kumonga terrorizing the expedition, Goro meets a native girl, Saeko, who leads the team to safety in her cave home. Later, Goro and Saeko discover an egg that hatches Minya. Goro declares it looks like a baby Godzilla, but really Minya looks more like a cross between Gary Coleman and a green pillsbury doughboy, and at birth he looks especially weird... more like a slimy frog with scrawny limbs. So anyway, Minya hatches and gets attacked by three Kamacuras, but Godzilla shows up, lays the smack-down, and adopts Minya. Throughout the rest of the movie, Godzilla protects Minya and teaches him valuable skills. Before they leave the Island, the U.N. research team conducts their experiment one last time, this time with great success. The Island freezes under a flood of snow, and in possibly the most heartwarming moment in the series, Godzilla holds his freezing son as the snow falls around them.

Let me start off by saying that this movie is a bit weird and features by far the worst looking Godzilla suit of the series, in my opinion. The music is goofy as crap, but matches the mood of the film. It's very kid-centered and focuses on Godzilla more as a loving parent to a playful child than a menacing force of destruction.

While this is not my favorite Godzilla movie, it is by no means the worst and has its good points. The insect enemies, though not the most creative in the series, are well executed and look good in the film. Many of the scenes in which Godzilla interacts with Minya one-on-one are actually very entertaining. Godzilla teaches Minya to breath his atomic ray and fight enemies. It's an endearing Godzilla movie, but by no means the best. Give it a look though.

Best Part:

As I said before, the scenes which include Godzilla and Minya interacting are easily the best of the movie. Probably my favorite is when Godzilla is trying to sleep and Minya starts playing jump rope with his dad's tail. Minya is clumsy, tripping and stepping on Godzilla's tail, and every time Godzilla looks at him like, "What the hell are you doing? I'm trying to sleep." Haha, good stuff. Also the end scene, were Godzilla pulls Minya out of the snow and holds him close is a very good one.

My Ranking: #25


Up next, the ultimate All-Star Monster Mash and Toho's original finale for the series... "Destroy All Monsters"